Director Spotlight: Christopher Nolan

Feel free to list ideas for other threads here

 

oh boy. this will be a fun thread, im sure

genuinely love the prestige and dunkirk. his batman movies are fine. memento has aged better than I expected. i could kinda leave everything else behind and never think about them again.

 

Despite his blind spots (which have been discussed ad nauseum on this site), he's a very talented and creative director, and I appreciate him as one of the few blockbuster-level directors who still has the freedom to do his own thing, rather than being subsumed into the larger content machine.

I always look forward to his movies, although the quality definitely varies.

 

I’m sure everyone will be normal about people’s different thoughts on the quality of this particular filmmaker.

Some of his stuff works best when he lets it be dumb. Dark Knight, Memento, The Prestige, Inception, they worked for people because they don’t get bogged down in anything, they just give you the premise and go. Tenet has cool elements but couldn’t engage as consistently as the others, and Interstellar flails when it tries to be about anything.

Dunkirk is a masterwork though. Genuinely have loved it more with each viewing.

 

Batman Begins might be worse than people think and Dark Knight Rises might be better but neither are good

 

He's a strange director for me where I'm always excited to see his next project, but I rarely have the desire to revisit it after I've seen it once. The expectations for me being Interstellar and Dunkirk. I loved both.

 

Love Interstellar and Prestige. Tenet was such a wet fart that I’m not really excited for what comes next.

 

I have the day off tomorrow. I might finally watch Tenet.

 

The Prestige

 

I liked Dark Knight.

Thats the only one I saw though. :(

 

Man's never made a bad movie.

Memento, The Dark Knight, The Prestige, Dunkirk, Interstellar and Inception are all 9s or 10s for me.

Batman Begins, Tenet, The Dark Knight Rises and Insomnia are probably 8s.

I really need to see Following.

 

Memento is my all-time favorite film. Has been for about the past 17 years.

The Prestige is also in my top 10.

I love The Dark Knight, although don't really have any desire to ever watch Batman Begins or The Dark Knight Rises ever again.

In college, I wrote a 10-page paper on Insomnia. I probably like the film far more than most.

Love Inception.

I liked Interstellar, but also have no need to watch it again.

Dunkirk was great, but not your typical Nolan kind of film.

I have yet to see Tenet (although now that it's on HBO Max I probably will soon). Never saw Following.

 

I have fun watching his movies the first time but never have a desire to go back to any of them other than Dunkirk. Inception was so fun the first time but there's too much exposition to revisit it.

Tenet and Interstellar we're poop.

 

Excellent scores in both tenet & interstellar

 

i agree the score for tenet is excellent. interstellar, no so much. hans rules but it's him doing karoake versions of his own work

 

Interstellar is bad but I enjoy it mainly for the visuals.

 

I thought Interstellar was just fine the first time I watched it, but went back this past year and was kind of mad at myself for not loving it more. The Dark Knight is still his best for me, but Interstellar is up there too.

Dope score.

 

i'm a little protective of nolan since he gets so much shit he doesn't deserve. dude made one movie that's any less than pretty good. his catalog is strong enough where i'll keep my eyes open for anything he has his hands in

 

play by play. if you read all this, i appreciate you:

following is surprisingly decent and i believe had some of the earmarks we'd expect from him down the road

memento is awesome and while i'll always be curious of what his career would be like if he stuck with more midbudget stuff, this film was probably proof he'd always have a great career nonetheless

insomnia is a pretty solid thriller (and good remake of what i assume is a superior original film) but not much more than that. it essentially existed to prove nolan could handle a bigger budget with some stars

batman begins is a great first entry even if there are a few cracks in the armor. impressive that's his first blockbuster in that i still think it's a top-tier cbm despite being at least a few years before superheroes would take over like they have

the prestige could be argued as his best. it's arguably the biggest fly in the face of nolan being this cold clinical filmmaker (though there's good arguments of that being the case elsewhere)

the dark knight

inception is great even if it's not the instant masterpiece it seemed to be immediately hailed as. if more movies like that could bring in like $800m, we'd be in a good (or at least better) space

the dark knight rises falls short of being the spectacular sequel to tdk, but i still enjoy myself each of the few times i've watched it. i think nolan at the very least greatly improved on the action scenes compared to bb

interstellar is the only outright misstep to me. and that's a shame because it arguably contains some of the most emotionally resonant moments in his ouvere. it should've been way better, but nolan stabs himself in the back too often. that said, i'll rewatch it if it comes back (safely) to theaters maybe

dunkirk was the bounce back he needed. the movie lost all interest in explaining shit to death and is better for it. i hope his future films take note of what worked for this one.

tenet is still a bit of a question mark, even though i liked it. it's certainly E X T R A, but i get this nagging feeling it's better than i and plenty others think it is. i'll always wonder what its overall perception would be if it were released under normal circumstances

 

Any director thats allowed to make big budget original movies (batman excluded)...and it gets press, makes money, so he can make another.


Thank you. Inception is my jam. Tenet only flop

 

Honestly there are days where, though I consider The Dark Knight always his best, Interstellar is my favorite

 

Man the score for Interstellar rules. That organ sounds incredible.

 

The Prestige
The Dark Knight
Memento
Interstellar
Inception
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight Rises
Dunkirk
Following
Tenet
Insomnia

big fan.

 

Memento is his best

 

Of course